Biography

Swedish-American actress, singer and dancer; onscreen since 1962. Her family had moved to the U.S. when she was five and she was raised in extreme poverty. In school, she blossomed into campus queen and made a TV debut with the "Ted Mack Amateur Hour" at 16. In her teens she auditioned for a job at the Playboy Club in Chicago. At 19, she went to Hollywood, driving across country with two male classmates, calling themselves the Suttletones. Legend has it that George Burns discovered her in 1960, singing in a lounge in Vegas. Two months later the 19-year-old was on the cover of Life magazine.

She made her film breakthrough in "Bye Bye Birdie;" within 12 months she was committed to 16 pictures at five studios. In 1962 she was Hollywood's bachelor girl, part innocent, part sex-pot. She herself considers her purring sexuality to be part of the costume, part of the act, claiming that personally she is "from the old school" and that one's passions are a private matter.

In 1964 she made a film with Elvis Presley, "Viva Las Vegas," and they had a long-running affair. She later said that they were friends for 14 years. She loved motorcycles and dancing.

She was known as a bimbo for some years, playing in such films as "Kitten With a Whip," and "The Pleasure Seekers." After a series of poor movies, she re-emerged as a star in 1972 with an Oscar nomination for "Carnal Knowledge." In 1973, her dad died and she was shaky and totally burned out. She had not taken a vacation for 13 years.

Ann-Margaret first met Roger Smith at Chicago's O'Hare airport in 1960 where she was on her way to Los Angeles for her screen test and he was a TV star on "77 Sunset Strip." Two years later when they met again, she was struggling to manage commitments and debts, and he suggested that he manage her career. They became an instant couple, and Smith left Victoria Shaw to marry Ann-Margaret in 1967. By the mid-'70s, Smith had built a real-estate and stock portfolio that parlayed her earnings into enough to make the couple financially independent for life.

Unable to have kids, Ann-Margaret mothered Smith's three kids from his prior marriage. In the early '80s, when Smith was stricken with myasthenia gravis, Ann-Margaret stepped up to the demands of keeping an illness at bay.

In 1972 she fell 22' off a stage in Las Vegas, breaking her arm and most of the bones in her face. With the insistence of the Insurance company, she entered A.A., though she swore that she had not had a drink for six months. Ten weeks after the fall, she was back on stage.

As well as show gigs, Ann-Margaret built a credit of many TV shots and 43 movies by 1994. Her autobiography came out on 2/09/1994.